Henceforth, this will be known as "
The Date".
There will be other dates with other people, I am sure. But I simply can't imagine the circumstances that would bring about a night spent with a woman that will compare with what I experienced on Friday night.
It was the single, best date of my adult life. I can't imagine a more lovely, more gracious companion. I can't imagine a more perfect night. It was as if the entire city of Chicago had paused all of it's many storylines and had patiently opened up its most beautiful experiences for this girl and I. We were the only two people in the city, who were out that night, everything waited on us.
I'll tell you about it. In loving detail. But first, let me tell you about the girl. And the complex history that I have with her.
Her name is Tara. She's roughly my age. 30ish, I think. I've known her, off and on, for 8 or 9 years now. I met her through a college friend, Kevin, who met her at grad school. (I think he's always had a bit of a crush on her too. At one point, that sort of bothered me. These days, I don't care. What could I do about it anyways?) I can remember meeting her on a road trip to visit him back in 95 or 96 and being embarrassed by how attractive I thought she was. I clammed up and turned beet red and sat there sweating, hoping that she wouldn't talk to me or look at me. Because I knew that if I opened my mouth to say,
"Please pass the salt." I'd actually end up saying
"I love you and will always love you. And I can't imagine why everyone else isn't saying the same thing."God, but she's lovely. Trim, thin, lively. She has brown hair that hangs down to her shoulder blades. Her eyes are so, so smart and wise. I think that she has brown eyes. (But I have to confess, I try to avoid looking into them, because I'm afraid, again, that I'll look like a lovestruck fool.)
She also has a gentle, optimistic personality that doesn't bother with the crude sarcasm or cynicism that seems to be popular, these days. She grew up on a farm, raised by good, decent, Christianly folks and maybe that's why she's as genuinely good as she is. I can't imagine her raising her voice in anger. I likewise, can't imagine the sound of her crying. I don't think I ever
want to hear that.
Years ago, 2003 actually, that summer, She and I spent 4 days camping out with friends, in the country. It was the wedding of one of my best friends and there was a consistent feeling of "rightness" about the whole affair. I danced with her at that wedding. Later, we stood together in the driveway, watching the fireworks that ushered the bride and groom off into their new lives together. Just her and I. Holding each other, hugging each other, in a way that said that there was interest more than just friendship. We talked that night, late into the morning hours and she expressed interest in me for the first time. She invited me to come to Carbondale to spend a weekend with her. It would have to be the next weekend, because the week after that, she was moving to Idaho, where she'd accepted a teaching position. So, I got one weekend with her, before she moved away indefinitely.
It was a great weekend. I toured her grad school and the girls in her costume shop looked at me like I was Someone Special to her. There was a knowing wink that people gave me that said, "this girl really like you, fella. Don't screw it up!" We ate meals together, drank wine together and slept next to each other. And we kissed. A lot. Often. As often as we could. All the time. Lots of kissing. Loads of it, actually. I burned her a CD of love songs and we listened to it and kissed some more. We curled up on a gigantic beanbag in her living room and started to watch a movie, but actually ended up kissing some more. There was a little bit more of fooling around, but mainly, I remember the exquisite kissing.
And the awkward end of the weekend. It was very clear that I was much more into her than just "a weekend visitor" type of thing. It was clear that I needed more of her presence in my life and I tried to find the best way to continue our relationship, despite her geographic move. There were phone calls and emails, but the contact from her, just faded away. And when I recognized the distance that she was intentionally putting into place, I got frustrated and as an act of emotional violence, severed all contact, altogether.
The February after she left, I wrote a lovesick poem about her and entered it in an online contest. It sort of won, I guess. And it was read by Garrison Keillor on "A Prairie Home Companion" as part of their Valentines Day program. You can hear it (and read it) by clicking
here. They titled it "Valentine's Day SFX Script" and added some lonely sound effects to it that only deepened the sadness of the whole thing. They also edited the heck out of it. It doesn't sound bad on the radio, but it also doesn't read well, in the "scripts" section. I don't consider it to be great art, but I include it here to add color to the story that I'm telling. Actually, I think it's a pretty terrible poem, all things considered. But, I offer up the good and the bad.
Years passed. I saw her occasionally when she would come to town for visits, but would always be on the other side of the room. Or if she entered, I'd walk out. I can remember one Gigantic New Years Eve Event, that I skipped altogether, rather than see her there. At the next year, she was there and she even kissed me at Midnight. As soon as the kiss ended, I nearly ran from the room and shortly thereafter, left the party altogether.
More Years Passed. No contact, at all. I stopped asking our mutual friends how she was doing. I stopped asking if she was seeing anyone. (which embarrassed them, I think.) I let her go. I threw away the two pictures that I had of her. (Something which I actually regret today.) I let her go, as completely as I possibly could've.
And then, at this year's New Years Eve party, I saw her again. God, she was just as lovely as I remembered. I was wearing a suit to the party and was feeling generally pretty good. Rather than play the part of
"the guy who was STILL sad about being left behind", I relaxed and had a pleasant conversation with her. We talked about Idaho and teaching and her little boy (he's 9, now). She asked how I was doing and I shared some of the stuff that I had going on. We were just very happy to see one another. And even though she and I didn't run into each other very much for the rest of the night, I felt good about the time we did get together. It seemed like a definite, positive change from the hurt feelings of the past.
When I heard in February that she was going to be in Chicago this summer, costuming shows around town, I resigned myself to the fact that I wasn't going to see her at all. She wasn't likely to contact me and I wasn't going to chase after her for the month that she was here. And it made no sense to try to date someone for a month, knowing fully well that they were going to leave and it would all have to end again. So, I let it go, altogether. I didn't even know when she was coming to town. (Odd, considering how much I truly wanted to be around her.)
Last Tuesday, on the 4th of July, I was out in the backyard of a friends house, enjoying a cookie and Hour 3 of a 7 hour neighborhood, amateur, fireworks display, when she stepped out on the back porch. As lovely as she ever was. I almost spit up chocolate chip cookie all over myself. She made her rounds, saying hello to everyone. When she got to me, we hugged and I felt my poor, war-torn heart, crack all over again and trinkle delicately down into my empty hollowed-out self, settling down, mostly, in my right shoe.
Later that night, she asked me to come sit by her at the bonfire and I did. I didn't say much. I was too busy watching her and soaking her up. So, it was, lulled in by the pleasures of being around her, that I nearly missed it when she mentioned that she was about to leave again and hadn't bothered seeing any of Chicago. A door opened for me and I nearly missed it altogether. I awkwardly offered up one of my nights and she agreed that she would like to go out with me and a night was picked. Last Friday night. She had no preference where we went or what we did. She trusted me to pick something good for her.
I spent the rest of the week, planning it out. I texted her and she agreed to take the train into town and meet me. After that, she was open to whatever I'd planned for us. And this, finally, is what we did...
At 6pm, I met her at the train station, right by the Art Institute. She had on a lovely little sun dress thing, very flowly skirt and indeed, later that night an absolute stranger commented on it in passing. Her hair was down, she was tank-topped and ready for an adventure.
We went into the Art Institute and already she was thrilled with the plan. (I'd overheard her saying at the party that she wished that she'd made time to visit one of the museums while she was in town. So, that had to be priority.) It was Free Day at the Art Institute and that meant later hours. We had the place open to us, until 9pm.
We rented the audio tours and walked around the museum, listening to the audio descriptions and histories of the famous paintings that we saw. I'd look over at her and she had her headphones on, leaning over to inspect some lovely painting by Renoir or Magritte. We saw the "Blue Guitarist" by Picasso. And "American Gothic" and "Nighthawks". We saw early Italian masterpieces. And we pointed out things that we saw or read in the descriptions, to one another. Sharing the experience together, equally thrilled to be exploring the art, together.
At 9pm, as the guards hustled us out, we sketched out the rest of the evening. We walked out of the Art Institute to see nearly 60 people gathered, watching the Bucket Boys play their Bucket Drums. We stopped and watched for a bit and she laughed at the improvised nature of the performance. She doesn't see a whole lot of street art in Idaho, I guess. Another twenty feet up Michigan Ave, we ran into a separate crowd, watching a contortionist fit himself into a very tiny, clear, plastic box. He finished the trick, as we passed by him and the crowd applauded wildly. So did Tara and I. Just another night of the casual magic that one sees in downtown Chicago.
We wandered through Millenium Park and watched the kids play in the fountain. So many families out there. She loves children and we stood there for a while, watching them play. She said that if he was there, her little boy would've loved running around in there. (He was spending the month with his dad in Ft. Myers.)
We visited the "Cloud Gate" sculpture and she ran her hands along it's smooth surface and we watched other people play around and under it. In the distance, we heard classical music coming from the Pritzker Pavillion. We wandered over and saw that there was a silent movie playing on the screen and that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was playing the accompaniment, live. I watched the movie, something in German, with title cards, having to do with the hard life on a submarine(?). She watched the orchestra playing, their arms moving in unison, as the strings drove out the military themes of the score. We wandered on, heading to Navy Pier. A cab picked us up, immediately. It was as if he were waiting for us. As if the city attended to our needs with clockwork accuracy.
On the pier, we grabbed dinner at the BeBop Cafe. Such good food. We both enjoyed what we ate. After dinner, while waiting for the check, we flirted and teased each other. I told her an elaborate lie about how
"wetnaps were invented during the American Revolution to clean gunpowder off of the soldiers hands, lest they catch aflame, blowing their own fingers off." She considered this, skeptically and verified it with me, once more. "Are you sure about that?" she asked and when I said that I was, she was me smiling and immediately punched me in the arm. We agreed that she best take everything I say, with a grain of salt. Because I'm inclined to lie about REALLY unimportant things, like wetnaps.
We took a spin on the Ferris Wheel. She took cell phone picturess of the skyline at night and we talked about living in a big city and how many cultures surround you. How that constant exposure to other people, wore off the rough edges of cynicism and prejudice, that you can pick up, living in the South.
A barker for one of the shoreline cruises caught her attention and we took the last cruise out together. We sipped wine and sat on the back of the boat and watched the skyline recede as we headed out onto Lake Michigan. It was a gibbous moon, bright and nearly full, hanging in the sky. She bought us wine and we sipped it and cuddled up on the bench, sometimes we would just lean there, listening to the motor and the water and feeling the wind roll over us. A very warm night. At times, I was so happy, so content, that I caught myself quietly humming some happy song to myself.
When the boat docked, we toured the Smith Stained Glass Museum. One more bit of graceful loveliness to an already perfect night. I caught her yawning, on occasion, and we started the ride home. It was nearly 1;30 in the morning. We'd spent 7 1/2 hours together.
We walked down the north side of the pier together, chatting casually and it occurred to me that it would've been the perfect time and place to kiss her, if I wanted to. But I remembered how I had gotten WAY too attached, WAY too quickly to her, last time. And I decided not to. I wanted to give her a nearly perfect night out with me, without feeling that she would have to pay for it later, by taking care of my emotional needs. So, I smiled at the thought of the gift that I was giving her and contented myself with that.
We caught the train north and she laid her head on my shoulder, her arms wrapped around me. She was tired, from a long night out. I smelled the sweet, flowery smell of her hair and gently stroked her hair. So much in love with her that I didn't want the train ride to end. We were supposed to transfer to the brown line at Fullerton, but I rode it onto to Belmont, because I didn't want to let her go. At Belmont, we leaned on a sign together, holding each other, tired and happy. She let me play with her hair again and I kissed her on the top of her head. Saying what I wanted to say, non-verbally.
We caught a cab from Montrose, dropping me off on the way home for her. I slipped her some cash for the cab and when I got out, she hugged me and kissed my cheek and said, "Thank you for a really wonderful night." I thanked her and kissed her on the forehead and sent her on her way.
(Before you ask, she knew that she was welcomed to come home with me, if she wanted. But I understand why she didn't. It just wasn't one of those kinds of nights.)
You see? A perfect night. We never had to wait for a cab or train. Our waiter and ship's bartender and everyone we encountered, treated us like a happy, young couple, in love. There was a glow about the whole evening. And this isn't just nostalgia speaking. I was aware, as the night progressed, that it was a special one for me. I assume it was for her too, but who could say?
Sometimes you have a day (or an evening) that is so perfect in every way, that you could relive it over and over again. This was that night, for me. And if there's a heaven and our eternal reward is to relive that night, THIS is the night I would choose. For one night, my life was spent with the person that I would choose, in the way that I would choose it to be lived. For this one night, I was the man that I want to be, all the time.
I love this girl, folks. She brings a grace and calmness to my heart, that makes me a strong and capable adult. When I'm around her, I feel gentle and relaxed and mature. If it were up to me, I'd spend the rest of my life around her, in whatever capacity, she'd have me in. I'd assist her in the raising of her little boy. And I'd love her, in the quiet of the nights, as a man loves a woman. And I'd feel no other boyish urges, pulling me towards another woman. I'd be content to be with her and we would live a very good life together. I know this to be true. I just know it with an unshakable certainty.
Tomorrow evening, she flies back to ID, to resume her previous life. I texted her, early this morning, letting her know that I'm available and interested, if she has no other plans. I'd love to see her again. But if I don't, that's okay too. I had nine hours with her on Friday night. That will have to last me for a good, long while.
Never let it be said that I loved any woman wisely or in a small way.
Oh I have sown my love so wide
That he will find it everywhere;
It will awake him in the night,
It will enfold him in the air.
I set my shadow in his sight
And I have winged it with desire,
That it may be a cloud by day
And in the night a shaft of fire.After Parting, by Sara Teasdale.
EDITED TO ADD: She just texted me back to say that she's left town, a day early. She's en route to meet her little boy and then fly back to ID with him.
Buuuuuuut, she said that she'll be in Chicago on the 15th, next weekend, for one day only and suggested that we get together. She doesn't care what we do, she just wants to do something. So, I'm cancelling any plans I had for that night. (Sorry Matt and SassyPatch) and she and I are going to the zoo and then heading to the beach to sit in the shade and sip wine and watch the sun set and the city light up. Or maybe we'll do cocktails at the top of the Hancock Tower. Something nice.
I am so happy that she wants to see me, that I may do somersaults here in my cubicle.
Posts
